My Experience as a K-12 STEM Instructor at USC
During the fall of my freshman year at USC, I decided to join a program called Mission Science. The program is part of Viterbi’s K-12 STEM center and also part of USC’s Good Neighbor Campaign which organizes community outreach initiatives. As an instructor, I work with students at local elementary schools in Los Angeles and facilitate activities to teach fundamental STEM concepts, serve as a positive role model, and cultivate their interests in STEM. In the four semesters I have been an instructor for the program, I have worked at four different schools: John Mack Elementary School, Vermont Avenue Elementary School, Point Fermin Elementary School, and Santa Teresita Elementary School, which is the only school of the four that is not part of the LA Unified School District.
Working with the students at these schools has been one of my most fulfilling experiences at USC, and it is amazing to see how excited the kids get over an activity as simple as paper airplanes. And they are really smart too! In a paper airplane activity, I would draw a free-body diagram to teach them about the fundamental forces of flight such as lift, drag, gravity, and thrust, and they would be able to explain it back to me. I hadn’t even learned about free body diagrams or the types of forces until high school.
Sadly, however, in my research about public schools, I’ve learned that LAUSD schools have historically faced significant challenges with funding, teacher quality, and overcrowded classrooms. In fact, students of LAUSD schools sued the district in 1990 because the schools had too many students, were less funded than other schools, and were disproportionately staffed by unqualified teachers who were hired on emergency credentials. The lack of expenditure levels made it difficult for the district to compete with other schools for experienced educators. Today, the district continues to experience many of the same issues (10 Challenges for the Los Angeles Unified School District).
With this in mind, it is sad to know that the problems with the district affects the quality of education of many of the students that I interact with. This is why I do the best I can every week to excite, motivate, and spark their interests in a fun scientific activity. And I have learned that these activities can truly have an effect, too. My twin brother, who is also an instructor for the program, works for San Antonio Elementary School (also an LAUSD school), and the teacher he works with said that he made a breakthrough with one of the students. The activity he did that day was paper towers. The kids cut, or folded paper into different shapes and then created a tower that could hold the weight of a few items. While he was teaching the lesson, I overheard one student talking about how many toy dinosaurs he could fit on top of his tower. I noticed that the kid was super excited, and he would sometimes interrupt my brother just to share how many dinosaurs were on his tower. My brother later found out from the teacher that this student would usually never say a word or participate during class, and said, “if you only knew what this kid goes through at home.” The teacher said that my brother was finally able to get this student excited about something.
This had an impact on me, and truly put things into perspective. It is easy to get lost in a fun activity with the students, but it is also important to keep in mind the significance of motivating them. Many of them come from tough situations at home, and many of them experience the consequences of educational inequity. Making a paper airplane, a paper tower, or a bridge out of popsicle sticks, can really make all the difference for them.
